Black Beauty Roster, the collective founded in 2020 with the aim of supporting diverse hairstylists, makeup artists and other beauty professionals in landing editorial, film and red carpet jobs, is taking its mission further with the launch of its latest portal.

“For thus long, we’d hear, ‘Oh I don’t know where to seek out the talent,’ — well, with this portal, we’re streamlining the means of connecting artists with brands and productions, creating these great discovery moments, and taking away excuses,” said Black Beauty Roster founder Maude Okrah.

Debuting Feb. 1, the Black Beauty Roster portal allows film, fashion and entertainment executives to explore the platform’s roster of greater than 10,000 vetted beauty industry professionals for hire.

“We’ve heard stories of models and actresses who needed to do their very own hair on set, carry their very own products with them or have literally cried of their chair because they didn’t feel heard or seen when it got here to their beauty experiences,” Okrah added. “With brands and productions, we knew a lot of them wish to do the correct thing, but just weren’t sure what that looked like, so we’re changing that.”

Talent seekers can filter their search by location, specialty, availability, union or non-union talent, and look at potential matches’ assigned tier (starting from Tier 1, who’re those with extensive on-set experience for giant productions, to Tier 4, designated to fledgling professionals looking for opportunities to construct their skills).

“We imagine diversity goes each ways, so our community of artists includes each people of color and non-people of color, but all of them have demonstrated the skill and skill to work with all hair textures and all complexions — that’s what is absolutely vital to us,” Okrah said.

Users may also opt into curated shortlists of suitable talent for specific gigs, and each firms and talent can anonymously submit questions and share personal experiences through the portal’s advice line.

“What we’ve found is that, sometimes because people don’t want to return off as insensitive or racist, they won’t ask the query. With this recommendation line, we’re making a secure space for them to get clarity, and alleviating the responsibility of fielding these requests from the [person of color] colleague, who is commonly the one to get them, which is draining and is usually a microaggression,” Okrah said.